Diversion
by Empathist
Summary: A fluffy one-shot set on one Sunday sometime between the early chapters of After Today. Brendan and Ste take the kids home to Amy, and end up going on a drive. Written for Chloe's birthday ;)


"I'll do this," Brendan said. "You get them inside, send whatsisname out so's I can hand the seats over."

He got on with detaching the children's booster seats from the car. Leah and Lucas ran up the path to the front door, with Ste following.

A minute later, Amy's boyfriend came outside.

"Alright, Brendan?" He picked Leah's seat up from the pavement and replaced it in his own car; Brendan walked along to give him Lucas's.

"There you go."

"They been good?"

"Always."

It had barely been more than twenty-four hours since Brendan and Ste had picked the kids up Saturday morning, but Amy had wanted them home early today because they had things to do. Family things, she'd said, and they didn't want them over-tired, plus Leah was half way through a school project which she was meant to take to school, completed, tomorrow morning. Having to hand them back before lunchtime had annoyed Ste, Brendan knew. The weekends always went too quickly for him.

"Want to pop in? Cuppa before you head off?"

"Don't think we're stopping, Simon. Gotta say goodbye to the kids though, so."

They went inside.

Ste was sitting on the couch, Leah on his lap with a face smudged with tears. Amy knelt on the floor looking up at her.

"We just haven't had the chance," Amy said to her daughter. "Simon's car's been in being fixed, so we couldn't – "

"What's going on?" Brendan asked.

"Nothing," said Amy.

"Mum said Britney would be back by now, but she isn't."

There'd been a school outing on Friday, and Leah had insisted on taking her doll with her but had somehow come home without it.

"I said we'd _try _to get her back, Leah," Amy said.

"No, you promised," said Leah. "You said 'Don't worry, cos she'll be here when you come home.' That's what you said."

"That's true, to be fair," Brendan said. "You did promise. Anyways."

Amy glared at him. She would never get used to Brendan being in her house, nor in her children's lives; and that was without him standing looming in the doorway all dark-stubbled and leather-jacketed, relishing her apparent failings as a mother.

"Oh, I'm sorry," she said to him, "I'm sure you've never made a promise to your children you didn't keep. Oh, wait..."

"Amy!" said Ste. No one else in the room would have seen the bare flicker of a muscle in Brendan's cheek or sensed his shudder at the sting of Amy's remark, but Ste did.

Amy returned her attention to her daughter.

"Leah, we probably wouldn't have found Britney anyway. Because we don't know exactly where you dropped her, do we? Maybe... maybe the fairies found her, mm? We saw fairy rings, didn't we, under the trees? So maybe she'll go and live with them, and they'll all live happily ever after."

"There's no such thing as fairies, they're made up," said Leah.

"How about," Simon tried, "We phone up the visitor centre and see if she's been handed in?"

Amy looked up the number.

A few minutes later, it was good news: a doll matching Britney's description had been found by a walker and was waiting to be collected.

"Can we go and get her now?"

"No, Leah, we can't go today. It's a long way, and Granddad's coming round for lunch in a bit. But we'll go next weekend, alright?"

"You promised."

"I'll see if I can get down there one day after work," said Simon, "How about that?"

"Aw, Simon!" Amy stood up and smiled at him.

"We'll go," Ste said. "We'll go now, won't we, Brendan."

"Hm? Go where?"

"To pick up Britney for our Leah, cos Amy and Simon are too busy, in't they."

"Ste, that's not fair. We've got plans, we can't just drop everything." Amy saw Ste's surly look of disapproval and it made her defensive. "Simon's going to go tomorrow anyway, even though he works all day, so you don't have to worry about it, alright?"

"We'll go." Brendan gave Amy and Simon his best magnanimous smile. "Can't keep Princess Leah waiting, can we? Just tell us where, and we'll go."

"Macclesfield forest," Amy said, and enjoyed watching Brendan's smile fade. "D'you want to borrow a map?"

:::::::

"It's the next road off of the main road." Ste hoped he sounded more confident about this than he felt.

"This one?"

"Yeah. No. The one after."

"Jesus, Steven, make up your mind."

"I dunno why you don't get a satnav, then you wouldn't be getting on at me all the time."

"I ain't being told what to do by some... _robot_ thing. Will you stop waving the map around? Can't see where I'm going, can I."

Ste re-folded the map and turned it upside down and studied it, trying to work out where they were.

"Aren't there signs?" he asked.

"Dunno. Yeah, there's one. Right road, by some miracle."

They drove on in silence.

"You didn't have to do this," Ste said in the end.

"Do what?"

"Go and fetch Britney for our Leah."

"Could'a left it to whatsisname, you mean?"

"Yeah, Amy would'a loved that, let him rack up the dad points 'stead of us."

"It's funny."

"What is?"

"Amy... She don't exactly have a type, does she."

"How d'you mean?"

"Look at him, whatsisname..."

"Simon."

"Yeah. Got that geeky thing going on, ain't he, the little glasses on his nose, kinda awkward – "

"D'you fancy him?"

"Then before that, she had that fucking giant. Con man, whatever he was, with the strip clubs was it?"

"Ally."

"That's the fella, thick as shit. Him and the latest one, chalk and cheese, ain't they."

"Maybe that's why she likes Simon, cos he's just, like, normal."

"Then who was it before?"

"Lee Hunter."

"Lee Hunter. See, nothing like the Aussie or the prof. Nothing like anyfuckingbody, wee Lee. Must'a laughed her into bed."

"Err, can you not?"

"Jealous?"

"Very funny."

Brendan glanced at him to check if he was pouting. He was.

"Then before that, it was you. Weird."

"I'm weird now, am I?"

"No. Amy Barnes is, you know? Nothing in common, the lot of you."

"There was Josh an' all, he was a right smug git."

"Jesus, your ex puts it about don't she?"

"You can talk. Anyway, what about Dodger? He's like Ally, in't he, with all them muscles and that."

Brendan laughed.

"Pocket-sized version maybe. What's he got to do with anything anyhow?"

"Amy had a thing with him, didn't she."

"With Mark? Seriously? Jesus."

"What's so funny about that?"

"No, nothing. Hats off to her. _Mark_. Jesus."

Ste looked hard at Brendan.

"Did you fancy him, then?"

"Who? Mark?"

"Mark. Dodger. You did, didn't you?"

"See what I mean about how your Amy ain't got a type? There's you, skinny little – and god alone knows how skinny you were back in the day when you were running with her..." Brendan paused for a moment in contemplation. "And then there's Mark, with his shiny little six-pack... It's weird."

"Whatever."

:::::::

They'd found the single-track road through the woodlands which led to the visitor centre, and parked the car.

There was a shop with an information desk in the low wooden building.

"Look, there she is," said Ste and pointed behind the desk where Britney was sitting on top of a stack of guidebooks. "Excuse me, we've come to pick up that doll. It's me daughter's, she lost it."

"Oh." The woman behind the counter looked curiously from Ste to Brendan. "Only, the lady who rang up about it this morning said she wouldn't be able to get here today."

"I know, but that was before she knew we was coming."

"I'm not being funny, but I don't think I can just... I mean, you could be anybody, just trying your luck."

"What, you saying we're just, like, trying to get a free doll? Listen, I don't know who you think you are, right, but – "

"Susan, is it?" Brendan had read the woman's name-badge: _Sue_. "It was Amy Barnes phoned you up, Leah's mother. My fella here, he's Leah's dad. It was Amy asked us to come, okay? So how about you just give us the toy and we'll be out of your hair."

"I didn't take the lady's name."

"That in't our fault, is it."

"I suppose her number'll be on our call log. I could phone her to ask."

"Why don't you do that?" said Brendan.

Sue found the number and rang it. While she waited for Amy to pick up she studied the two men standing in front of her. The younger one was staring at the rack of postcards but his dark eyebrows were lowered and he looked as if he might start knocking things over at any moment. The older one's eyes didn't leave him: he looked poised to grab him if he kicked off.

"Hello?" The phone was answered.

"Oh, hello, sorry to bother you. My name's Sue, we spoke earlier on about your daughter's doll being found?"

"Oh yes, hello. What's..?"

"It's just, I've now got two... _gentlemen_ turned up asking to collect it, and I just wanted to make sure they..."

"If it's Ste and Brendan, then it's fine."

"Excuse me," Sue said, "Would you mind telling me your names?"

"He's Steven. I'm Brendan." Brendan imagined Amy saying, _They're dangerous. Call the police_.

Sue handed Britney over.

:::::::

"She was a right mardy cow, that one."

"You sure this is a short-cut, Steven?"

"Think so, yeah. The way we came took all day, didn't it."

"Yeah, but this road's disappearing now, ain't it."

"Oh."

"'Oh'. I'm gonna turn around. Least I will if there's someplace I _can_ turn around."

Brendan drove on, the road turning into a muddy path, until he spotted a place where the trees thinned out enough on one side to attempt a three point turn.

"Where we going?" Ste said in alarm as the car bumped off the track and under the canopy of trees.

"I told you, I'm gonna try turning around. Why, d'you think I'm taking you off to have my wicked way with you, Steven?" As he said it, it sounded like a good idea; he drove further into the woods, pulled up and switched off the engine.

They unclipped their seatbelts. Brendan turned towards Ste; touched the side of his knee with his knuckles to get his attention. Ste's gaze went from Brendan's hand to his eyes to his mouth, and then they were kissing. Ste was aware of the smell of leather and the scratch of stubble and the heat of Brendan's body as his hand moved inside his jacket and tugged at his T-shirt. Brendan bit Ste's lip and slid his fingers into the loose waistband of his tracksuit bottoms.

"We gonna get in the back?" Ste said.

They both got out; Brendan took off his jacket and met Ste on the back seat. As soon as they slammed the doors Brendan yanked Ste's pants half way down, pushed up his top and kissed his stomach and then his mouth.

"I wanna fuck you." He kissed him again, then held his head and looked at him. "We ain't got anything, though, y'know. Any stuff. You want me to fuck you?"

Ste got hold of Brendan's hand and took his fingers into his mouth and coated them with saliva. Brendan felt between Ste's legs and pushed into him, two wet fingers then three, and watched his eyelids flicker with a confusion of sensations.

"Fuck. _Fuck_." Ste felt Brendan's touch inside him moving surely to where he wanted it till the rawness was masked by a rush of pleasure. His head pressed back against the window with the force of Brendan's mouth on his throat. He heard the sound of a belt being unbuckled, a zip unzipped, but then Brendan was off him.

"Get these off, yeah?"

Ste fumbled out of his trainers and wriggled out of his trackie bottoms and boxers, and watched as Brendan freed his cock and got himself rapidly ready. He felt a shiver of anticipation: he was impatient for the familiar feeling of being stretched and filled, Brendan's weight on him. There was an edge to it this time though that made Ste's heart race. He was used to lube – lots of it – and it was a while since they'd made do without it.

"Getting dark," Ste said.

"What?"

"Raining, innit."

"You okay?" Brendan said as he bent Ste's knees up against his chest.

"Yeah. No. Can you... You know, more... Like, more spit."

"We don't have to fuck, Steven. Do something else if you want?"

"I wanna. But just..."

Brendan manoeuvred them both till he could get his mouth where he needed to. He licked Ste's crack and spiked his tongue into his hole, and licked again. On his way up again he took a bite of his balls and ran his lips up the underside of Ste's cock.

"Okay now?" he asked into his mouth.

"Yeah. Ow!"

Brendan was in him already.

"That hurt?"

"Yeah. Don't... don't stop. _Fuck_." Ste braced his arm against the back of the front seat and tilted his pelvis to smooth out the path Brendan was forging. "No, don't..."

"Don't what? You wanna stop?"

"No, but don't... I'm gonna..."

"Don't _thrust_?"

"Yeah. Let me just..."

Brendan held still, and then it was his turn to groan, "Fuck. Fuck... _Jesus_," as Ste started tightening around him, his inner muscles squeezing like a fist, and their surroundings seemed to close in too as the sky lowered and the rain turned the windows into waterfalls.

And then the thunder came, and Ste jumped with the shock of it and pulled Brendan's orgasm out of him, and yelled as it powered through them both.

Brendan finished Ste off with his hand before he eased out of him and sat back. Ste uncurled himself and settled beside him while they got their breath back; they watched the rain slow down and the weak sunlight filter through the trees again.

"We got wipes?" Ste asked.

"Glove box."

Ste hung over the front seats to get the packet, giving Brendan the chance to give his bum a slap and then a kiss.

"I knew you'd do that."

"Didn't want to disappoint."

Ste laughed, and they cleaned themselves up.

"Here, did you know Britney was sat on the back shelf watching us the whole time?"

"She better keep her mouth shut. Come on, better get going or the whole day'll be gone." Brendan opened his door and got out.

"Hang on, let me get me kecks on first."

Brendan went to get into the driver's seat.

"Fuck."

"What's up?" Ste asked through the open door as he got dressed.

"Got a flat, ain't we."

"What?"

"Tyre's flat. Fucking thing." He kicked it.

The rain started getting heavier again.

"What we gonna do? Call the whatsits?"

"It's just a flat tyre, Steven. I got a spare."

"You know how to change a tyre?"

Brendan got out the jack from the boot and slotted it under the car.

"You gonna sit in there nice and dry and watch me, or you gonna make yourself useful?"

The first option sounded better to Ste, but he got out and stood, shoulders hunched against the rain and arms folded.

"What d'you want me to do, then?"

"There's a wrench in the boot, I'll need that."

Brendan jacked the car up part way.

Ste found the wrench and watched Brendan working.

"Anything else?"

"What? No, just... go stand under a tree or something out'a the rain, you look like a drowned puppy."

Ste didn't move. Brendan's T-shirt was drenched by now and clung to his body, and the tensed muscles of his arms shone as the raindrops splashed onto them and trickled off. Ste couldn't take his eyes off him.

Brendan glanced up and shook his head.

"What?" said Ste.

"Like what you see, do you?"

Ste shrugged, "S'alright."

Brendan had the wheel off now and was struggling to get the tyre off it.

"Get the spare, yeah?"

Ste lifted it out of the boot and carried it over.

"Here y'are."

"Put this one in the boot, good lad."

The flat tyre was on the ground. Ste looked at it.

"It's all muddy."

"It's fine, it'll lie on the tarpaulin where the spare was."

"I meant... picking it up. It's all muddy."

"Seriously? Jesus, Steven, leave it then, you little gay."

"Shut up, I'm just saying."

"Yeah, and I'm just changing a fucking wheel on me knees in the mud in the pissing fucking rain, so forgive me if I don't give a fuck, d'you know what I mean?" He watched Ste scowl at him then move to pick up the tyre, and relented. "Leave it, Steven. No point both of us getting dirty."

Brendan finished replacing the wheel and lowered the car. He heaved the old tyre into the boot along with the jack and the wrench, then closed it and turned back to Ste.

"Your knees," said Ste, pointing at Brendan's jeans caked in mud.

"That a hint?" Brendan looked at Ste's crotch. "Cos by the look of it, you're after something."

They stepped closer and kissed. Ste's lips were cold and tasted to Brendan of rain and the open air. Ste pressed against him: Brendan was warm from his labouring, despite being soaked.

"You saying you're gonna..?" Ste asked as Brendan's hand cupped him. He felt himself stiffening.

"Might as well, can't get much dirtier." Brendan dropped to his knees again and slid down Ste's trackies to expose his cock.

Ste leaned back against the car as Brendan grasped him loosely with a muddy hand and lapped at his tip and massaged his balls, and then sucked him and squeezed him till Ste felt as if the trees were spinning around them. His knees buckled when he came and he sank to the ground before Brendan could catch him.

Brendan spat into the mud then got to his feet and held out his hand to help Ste up.

"State of me," Ste said.

"It suits you."

Brendan stripped off his T-shirt and wrung it out, then cleaned the mud off his hands with it. Ste watched him: the hairs of his chest clung to his skin, and his belt was still undone.

"You look like you're out of a porno."

"Oh yeah?" said Brendan. "That what you do when I'm at work, is it? Sit around watching porn?"

Ste tutted, "No. Why, do you?"

"Don't need to, do I, when I got you at home." He handed the crumpled-up T-shirt to Ste. "Here."

"Ta." Ste wiped off the worst of the mud from his clothes. "Rain's stopping now. Typical."

He handed the T-shirt back to Brendan.

"Get going now, then," Brendan said, and discarded the shirt on the ground.

"You can't leave that here. What if a body gets found in the woods and they find that T-shirt and it's got your DNA on it?"

"What?" Brendan said, but he picked it up anyway and threw it into the back of the car.

"Just saying."

Ste's hair was stuck wetly to his forehead; Brendan pushed it back, and remembered doing the same at their wedding after they'd argued in the rain outside the registry office.

"Muddy this time," he said out loud.

"What?"

"Nothing. Your hair, it's... I got it muddy, is all."

"Right." Ste looked at him. Sometimes he felt as if everything that went on in Brendan's head was a mystery, and sometimes – times like now – what he saw clear as day was a fierce love being fiercely hidden from sight.

"Good." Brendan opened the driver's door and got his jacket from the seat and shrugged it on. "Better get that doll back to Leah."

"What they gonna think when we turn up like this?"

They got in the car and found their way back to the main road.

Brendan noticed Ste rubbing his neck.

"You okay?"

"Yeah. Must'a been in a funny position in the back."

"Say one thing for you: Mark might'a got a six-pack and whatever, but he ain't as bendy as you."

"How would you know that?" Ste stared at Brendan.

"Just a guess."

"Have you – ?"

"He's straight, Steven, ain't he, so."

"So why you even talking about him like that, eh?"

"You brought him up. Told me he went with Amy, remember?"

"Yeah, but – "

"Nobody's as bendy as you, okay? That's how I know he wouldn't be, cos nobody is. It's one of your... your talents, ain't it."

"Right."

"Alright?"

"Alright." Ste was quiet for a few minutes, then he said, "Talented, am I?"

Brendan paused to think of the right words.

"Proper talented."

:::::::

Amy opened the front door.

Ste and Brendan were standing in front of her. Brendan's chest and stomach were bare under his open leather jacket, and his jeans were plastered with drying mud. His hair's spikes were flattened and swept back. Ste's hair looked dark and dirty, and there were handprints on his face, his hips, his groin.

"What on earth have you..?"

"We've got Britney," said Ste.

"But, what..?"

"Had to change a tyre," said Brendan at the same time as Ste said, "Got caught in the rain."

Amy saw a look pass between the two of them that for a fraction of a second seemed to lock out the rest of the world. It wasn't right, two people being so bound up in each other, but she'd learnt by now there was nothing she could do about it.

Leah came running then and pushed out past Amy onto the doorstep.

"Britney!"

"Promised, didn't we?" Brendan said, and Amy rolled her eyes.

"You're all muddy," Leah said, and laughed.

"Yeah," said Ste, "It's just cos we..."

"I know," said Leah. "You've been play-fighting again."


End file.
